


Breathe Out

by rilla



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 16:17:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11490051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilla/pseuds/rilla
Summary: Zayn and Harry, backstage at MSG in 2012, on top of the world and waiting for it to end.





	Breathe Out

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for an [anonymous prompt](http://flomps.tumblr.com/post/162881879211/26-zarry-please) on tumblr - thank you to whoever sent it in! the title is from everlong by the foo fighters (and i wonder when i sing along with you / if everything could ever feel this real forever / if anything could ever be this good again).

Zayn finds Harry backstage, tucked into a far-off dressing room away from all the noise and the clattering. He needs a place to be alone but it’s always been easy to be alone together with Harry. His presence has a sort of quietness to it that Zayn has always appreciated. Niall makes a lot of conversation and Louis always has something up his sleeve and Liam’s too polite to let a silence lie for too long. Harry likes to be in the middle of a quiet space the same way that Zayn does, so being quiet together has always worked for them.

It makes sense that Harry has found the only other quiet space at Madison Square Garden. It makes less sense that Harry is crying. He’s hunched over the dressing table, his head in his hands and his shoulders heaving. It’s a sort of deep, horrible sobbing that Zayn’s never seen from him before and it seems kind of ridiculous. Harry has his whole family there tonight and they’ve got the after party and then Harry’s got Taylor Swift’s hotel room to go to afterwards, which will probably never stop being hilarious to Zayn. Anyway, by rights, Harry should probably be in a pretty good mood.

Still, there’s very little that Zayn understands more than being surprisingly unhappy when the opposite is supposed to be true. He only considers silently leaving for a moment, and then instead he says quietly: “Haz?”

Harry moves almost convulsively as he straightens up, and when he turns around his eyes are wide and glassy with tears and his nose is red. He isn’t an attractive crier. Neither’s Perrie; she turns into a total mess every time, raw nose and makeup all over her face and all her eyes swollen. Zayn doesn’t like to think about all the times he’s accidentally made Perrie cry because he never knows what to do; he just stands there ineffectively making awkward faces and offering to buy her things, which never really works. It’s easier now, with Harry; Zayn feels himself moving forwards with his arms open, guides Harry’s curly head down onto his shoulder, one hand threading loosely through Harry’s soft hair and his other arm around his back, holding him close. “All right, Harry,” he says, and feels Harry relax against him before letting out a couple more sobs that sound more snotty than Zayn and Zayn’s designer shirt would like. “All right, Harry. You’re all right, babe. You’re all right.” He turns his face so that he can kiss the side of Harry’s head and then he rests his mouth against Harry’s hair, shower damp and fragrant. “You’re all right,” he tells him one last time as Harry gets his shit together and takes a couple of shaky breaths.

He doesn’t extricate himself from Zayn though. He moves slightly and Zayn shifts a bit and Harry says “Thanks,” his voice all thick and damp, his face close to Zayn’s, their foreheads touching for a moment. “Thanks, I – yeah. Sorry.”

“No need to be sorry, mate.” Harry’s hands have found their way to Zayn’s waist and they’re warm, like they’re burning a hole through Zayn’s shirt. Zayn’s hands are always too cold, he hates it, Perrie complains, all the girls complain. Lads are less picky about that stuff in his experience but maybe he just didn’t notice. Harry’s never minded. “You okay?” he asks, and Harry nods, barely moving backwards, and Zayn lifts a hand so that he can wipe off Harry’s cheeks with his shirt cuff. Harry laughs, strange and choked up, and then his hand darts up fast as anything so he can grab onto Zayn’s and hold Zayn’s palm on his cheek, fingertips pressing down between Zayn’s fingers, his other hand coming up too, to hold Zayn’s hand there like he’s afraid he’ll try to wriggle away. Zayn doesn’t know how to explain that he won’t move away, that it was never his intention, so he just stands there and presses one of his hips against Harry’s instead.

“I’m, like – I’m all right, I just. Tonight’s been a lot, hasn’t it?” Harry says. He’s letting Zayn’s hand fall now but he’s not letting go of it. He runs his thumb over Zayn’s swallow tattoo. “Did I tell you how much I like this thing?”

“Yeah.” The first time he told Zayn he liked it, Zayn’s mouth was wrapped around Harry’s dick and his hand with his brand new tattoo was curled carefully around the base of it. It was a weird time to point out the tattoo but Zayn’s pretty much used to Harry being a massive fucking weirdo at this point. He likes it most of the time. Keeps him on his toes the way he knows he can keep Harry on his toes by throwing him one of his biggest and craziest smiles and dragging him through the hotel they’re staying in onto the roof and kissing him against a wall underneath the heavy dark sky. He liked that night. He wishes there was some way to replicate it tonight but Perrie’s here and so is Harry’s family and – he feels a stupid giggle bubble up inside his throat – Taylor fucking Swift.

But Taylor Swift’s not here right now so Zayn does his best for Harry instead. “Why are you crying, then?”

“Always cutting to the chase, aren’t we, Malik?”

“One of us has to,” Zayn points out, and Harry raises an eyebrow like he’s acknowledging that’s true.

“I just – like I said. Tonight’s been a lot. The last few weeks have been a lot. I just… I think it got on top of me.” Harry lets go of Zayn completely then and edges back to the dressing table he was crying over before, sitting down on it, just the edge of him. “When we were on stage it was the best it’s ever been, you know? But God, the temporality of it.”

“Nothing lasts forever,” Zayn points out.

“I know. But for a moment tonight I felt lonely on that stage.” Harry looks at Zayn with wide bloodshot eyes as if he’s expecting him to gasp and ask what on earth was wrong and what he can do to fix it.

Zayn isn’t sure what to say. He thought it was pretty normal to feel lonely on stage most nights. “Oh,” he says, at a loss.

“Do you ever think,” Harry says, “that we’ve reached the top of the world and now the only other way is down?”

Zayn has thought that, as it happened. He’s thought it a lot, but then it always turned out that they hadn’t reached the top yet and there was further to go. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I think we’ve still got some good stuff ahead of us.”

“Yeah.” Harry looks into his eyes then, more searching than before. “But it can’t last forever. You and me – we know that.”

Zayn does know that and recently he’s been starting to become more aware that Harry does too. He isn’t so sure about the others but he does know that there have been moments where his and Harry’s eyes have met during meetings when long term plans have been discussed. He doesn’t know how long he can do this for, and he knows himself, he knows that his mind changes quickly sometimes, that he feels incredible some days and lower than shit on others. Today is a good day but that doesn’t guarantee that tomorrow will be too. Sometimes the structure of the band is a great thing and stops him from doing stupid shit, but other days it feels like a prison he’ll never break out of. If Harry felt like he was in a prison, Zayn thinks he’d probably wait to calmly and quietly ask for a key before unlocking his cage and walking out into the sunlight. Zayn would just burn the whole place down, himself included. He sighs, and then he admits: “We do know that.”

“Today just felt like the pinnacle, I suppose. But things can stay good for a while, right?” He looks at Zayn for confirmation, and Zayn nods even though he doesn’t know, not really. He wants Harry to be happy though, somehow. He always has. Harry sniffs then like he’s made a decision, and shrugs a shoulder. “All right then.” His head tilts a little and Zayn knows that smile all too well. “Come here.”

Zayn can feel himself smiling too now, a mirror of Harry’s face. “For fuck’s sake. Perrie’s out there, your mum’s out there—”

“Taylor’s out there.” Harry laughs, a helpless bubble. “Are you judging me a bit for my life and choices right now?” he asks, and Zayn’s laughing too as he nods. He watches Harry as he passes by and clicks the door lock shut, leaning back against it, hands behind him and his smile bright even though his face is still puffy. “Kiss me,” he says, sweeter than he has the right to be.

“You’re still all snotty,” Zayn says, putting up that wall even though both of them know that Harry can break it down in seconds. “You’ve been crying.”

“So make me feel better. And I’m _not_ snotty. You’re always so fucking rude, Zayn Malik.” There’s something about Harry’s smile that makes it seem as though he’s full of stars.

“You love it,” Zayn says, and the stars explode as Harry says: “Maybe I do.”

There’s a moment and then Zayn exhales a breath. “Well then.”

“Well.” Harry’s smile is less certain now and there’s petulance in his voice as he insists, “Kiss me.”

Zayn does, of course he does. He crosses the room in a couple of steps and kisses Harry up against the door. He wishes he knew why kissing Harry always feels so reassuring and frightening at the same time, like coming home – like coming home the way he comes home now, now that things have changed and he doesn’t know his family so well any more and he doesn’t fit in as well. Coming home to somewhere that he doesn’t recognise. Harry always kisses him back like he wants him badly, but he’s always been a good liar.

“I missed you,” Harry says, after a moment. He runs his thumb across Zayn’s cheekbone and Zayn shrugs away, muttering “Fuck off,” and Harry cradles the side of his face so he can’t move. He knows Zayn won’t mind that; they’ve been together enough times for him to know pretty much everything about the way that Zayn likes to be touched. “I did,” Harry insists.

“Why would you miss me?”

“It’s been a while.”

“Not that long.” Three weeks and two days.

“Ages.” Harry kisses him again, leaning into him. It’s so quiet that Zayn can hear the sounds of the two of them kissing. It’d probably be pretty disgusting if he wasn’t involved in it but God he is, and he can’t think about anything except the way that Harry’s mouth is moving against his and the way that Harry’s unbuttoning his shirt and touching his chest and stomach, a little rough but Zayn knows that’s just because he wants this badly. He helps Harry out, undoes his top button and shrugs out of his shirt and drops it on the floor even though it’s white and it’ll probably get dirty there. It’s so weird that he doesn’t have to give a shit about that stuff because there will always be more clean shirts and people willing to pick up after him. Their lives are so fucked up.

Harry touches Zayn’s chest half-reverently, fingertips ghosting over his sides and his hips and his stomach. Zayn bites back a laugh when it tickles and Harry laughs too and wraps his arms hard around Zayn’s middle to lift him up so he can bite the side of his neck. Zayn just goes with it because what the fuck else can he do, Harry’s a weirdo and prone to these stupid big physically affectionate gestures, and Zayn – God help him – he likes it, he does. He likes it. Likes him.

They find themselves on the sofa in the corner of the room, beat-up and stained. “This is gross,” Harry says, and snorts out a laugh when Zayn says “You’re gross.” Harry’s hair tickles on his chest and stomach as he kisses his way down his chest. He reaches Zayn’s jeans and undoes his belt so he can slide them off, and then he looks up while Zayn’s still staring at him rapt instead of managing to change his face to an expression of slightly bored nonchalance. “Do we have time,” Harry begins, and then breaks himself off.

“To fuck?” Zayn asks, managing to sound as uninterested as possible. “I suppose so.” His heart’s speeding up and Harry’s cheeks have flushed the nicest pink in the world, dusky behind his faint, faint brown freckles. He knows that Harry’s eyes are beautiful in photographs, he’s seen them and thought, _That Styles, he’s a good looking boy_ , but there’s no competition for seeing him like this, the softness of him and his messy hair and his chewed bottom lip. “Could you please get naked now?” Zayn asks him, and Harry almost falls over as he gets up to stumble out of his jeans. “Socks too,” Zayn requests as he takes off his own, and Harry obliges. Harry always obliges when it suits him. He slides himself on top of Zayn then with an awkward elbow nudging into Zayn’s side and his boner hard through his boxers. Rutting on a sofa in pants reminds Zayn of being sixteen and afraid. He’s afraid now too, he supposes, but for different reasons – and anyway, his pants now are Armani instead of Asda, which makes a difference.

“You have the nicest – is this a clavicle?” Harry asks, running a finger across Zayn’s collarbone.

“No, I don’t think – I – maybe,” Zayn says, losing his grip on his knowledge of basic anatomy.

“Whatever it is, it’s beautiful.” Harry dips his head and kisses it. Zayn hates his earnestness. “And you have lovely nipples.” He flicks one with his index finger and Zayn hears himself honk out the most stupid and embarrassing laugh in the world, his whole body relaxing and wanting at the same time, fluid and sweet as his knees open and Harry rests in between them, his messy hair blocking out the neon strip light on the ceiling, which is ugly and white and totally inappropriate. They can see each other so clearly in here. They usually save it for dimmed hotel rooms but this works better. Zayn can feel the bumpiness of spots on the back of Harry’s shoulders when he runs his fingers over them but he doesn’t mind. He tangles his fingers in Harry’s hair and draws him down to kiss him, harder now, getting down to business, more of a prelude than anything else.

They perform the usual and complicated and ungainly dance of wriggling out of their boxers and it’s immediately better to be warm skin on warm skin. Zayn presses his fingertips into the soft flesh of Harry’s arse to hear his breath catch in his throat and smiles triumphantly. “How’d you want to do this, pretty boy?” he mutters into Harry’s ear, and Harry says, “I thought you were supposed to be the pretty boy.” Zayn bites Harry’s earlobe to tell him off and Harry wriggles a bit and then says, “I’d quite like to fuck you, if you don’t mind.”

Zayn smacks his arse, not particularly lightly. “Say it like you mean it,” he demands.

Harry pulls back and rests a forearm on Zayn’s chest, his eyes on Zayn’s, steady now. “I’m going to fuck you as hard as you’ll let me. I want to make you see stars. I want to make you say my name. Did you know you never say my name?”

“I say your name all the time,” Zayn says, feeling slightly dazed.

“You don’t,” Harry says. “Not like this.”

Zayn didn’t know that. He’s surprised that Harry noticed. He feels a wave of uncertainty, dizzying and frightening, and it makes him want to crawl inside Harry’s skin to feel safe and protected again, which makes no sense at all. Instead he just says “Well,” and reaches for Harry’s cock. He’s big, of course he is, how could you get the Harry Styles attitude without a big cock but – crucially – he’s not bigger than Zayn, which is probably one of the reasons that this has always been a match of equals. As a man of the world, Zayn has of course felt numerous other dicks in his time, but Harry’s has always been his favourite, his silky skin and the weight of him and the way he smells, because everyone whose crotch Zayn’s pressed his face into has had a different smell, some good and some not so good. There’s something about the way that Harry smells that Zayn’s always liked: the way his neck smells after he’s been on the treadmill, his scalp when they’re in bed half-asleep and Zayn’s lying behind him – and his cock, of course. All the most private parts of him. He runs his thumb over the head of Harry’s cock and feels him groan, low and heartfelt.

It’s as good as it ever has been: Harry has never stopped being the sort of person who carries a sachet of lube in his wallet, which is useful as he presses his fingers inside Zayn, certain because they know each other’s bodies well by now. Harry’s eyes are intent and it’s odd to think that he was crying minutes ago, afraid that this would all end. It’ll never end, Zayn wants to tell him, but that would be a lie and he couldn’t ever lie at a time like this. Harry holds Zayn’s wrists down over his head with his spare hand and although Zayn knows he could break away he doesn’t want to. He loves the long, slow way that Harry opens him up, like they’ve got all the time in the world. When he’s with other people, Zayn’s always bad at relaxing at times like this. He doesn’t know what he’s afraid of: the vulnerability, or maybe whether or not it’ll hurt, because it has hurt at times, with other guys who have fucked him. But Harry’s unfailingly careful and Zayn learned a while ago that he can trust him to make it as good as they both want it to be.

When the time comes Zayn tries to flip Harry onto his back and only succeeds in making the couch make a worrying noise. “Fuck,” Harry says, his eyes comically wide, and starts tugging the cushions off the back of the sofa and flinging them into the floor so Zayn’s got space to straddle him. He moves onto his back and it’s less satisfying than shoving him onto it but Zayn can’t deny there’s a certain pleasure in watching Harry there propped up on his elbows, pupils dilated and the roots of his hair damp with sweat, one hand on his cock like it’s so hard he can’t leave it alone. “Babe,” Harry manages to get out, which is something that Zayn’s never heard him call anyone, and he looks like he’s about to say something else when Zayn starts lowering himself down, one hand behind himself to guide him.

It does hurt very slightly but it’s nothing remotely close to unbearable. He rolls his head from one side to the other, adjusts, arches his back. He loves feeling this full. He loves being this close to someone. He loves the way that he can feel Harry’s gaze on him. People tell Zayn all the time that he’s good-looking but sometimes it’s with awe and he can tell it’s just because he’s famous and they’ve seen his face on the front of magazines, but the look on Harry’s face is different. As though he feels like he’s got lucky here, which is odd because Zayn’s pretty sure it’s the other way around.

He moves his hips and Harry’s fingertips bite into his waist. All his skin’s alight with Harry’s touch and the way he’s looking at him and his cock’s hard against his stomach. He moves his hand down to curl around it, gives himself a couple of lazy jerks and sees Harry’s jaw slacken. Good. “Come on,” Zayn says, like Harry’s late fucking him even though he knows for a fact that Harry was just being a nice boy and waiting for him to be comfortable, and Harry shifts, fucks up into him. The breath’s forced out of Zayn, sweet and lazy and everything, the heel of his hand on Harry’s chest, right in the centre between all his stupid nipples. He moves and Harry pushes up so that he can kiss him. Zayn lets him and kisses him back hard, tangled and messy, his hand pushing through Harry’s hair. It’s harder to move like this but there’s something that’s so intimate about it, their chests so together, his bare toes pressing into the ugly old sofa as he rocks as much as he can.

Sweaty foreheads are pressed together and Harry’s pushing the tip of his nose against Zayn’s so that they have a moment of eye contact before they kiss again, clashing and hard and imperfect. Zayn rests his forearms on Harry’s shoulders as he rides him and Harry reaches down to touch his cock, hard in a way that makes the world more vivid. He wants more, he wants – he wants everything, and he breaks the kiss, Harry’s teeth on his bottom lip, and says, “Hey – hey.”

“Hey?”

“I want – I want – ” Zayn needs to get to the gym more because he’s out of fucking breath. “I’m gonna get on my hands and knees.”

“Yeah?” Harry gasps. They’re so eloquent.

“Yeah. I just…” The floor. They shift down there, ungainly and ridiculous, but the second Zayn’s on his hands and knees Harry’s pressing inside him again, one quick thrust that makes Zayn curl in pleasure and make a noise that sounds like fuck knows what. His fingers bite into the carpet on the floor, which is probably going to leave grazes on his palms and knees that he’ll have to lie to Perrie about. But it’s worth it for the blinding pleasure that goes through him every time Harry fucks into him, like the world is whiting out, somehow the perfect angle found.

There are footsteps outside and Zayn feels Harry freeze as they hear a peal of Louis’s laughter as he passes by the room. “Do you think,” Harry begins, and Zayn says, “I don’t give a fuck, please, please, come on, I just—”

There’s not a single part of him that cares if people know in this moment, although he knows that he’ll care more than he should when it’s over. Harry pounds into him harder now, the way he always does when he loses a bit of that carefully held control, hands biting into Zayn’s hips and Zayn curls himself over, starts getting himself off because he’ll die if he doesn’t, and Harry shifts just a bit and that’s it, that’s fucking it, and Zayn feels himself coming and coming into his hand. Harry fucks into him a couple more times, more shallow and fast now, and then he’s pulling out and coming hard and hot over Zayn’s back and arse. In the moment that follows, Zayn realises that he’s wiped his handful of come onto the carpet, because he is a disgusting cretin. Above him, Harry’s panting, hard and out of breath. Zayn looks over his shoulder and says, “You could have come inside me.”

“Yeah. I just – yeah.” Harry’s still breathing heavily, beads of sweat on his forehead, as he pulls out. He collapses down onto the carpet and pulls Zayn with him so that Zayn’s head is on his chest and Harry can touch his hair gently. “Yeah, I know – I just, we’ve got that party to go to.”

The after show party. Right. There’s a moment of quiet, and then Zayn says: “Harry.”

“Yeah?”

“You said I didn’t say your name. So I…”

“Doesn’t count. You didn’t say it during.” Out of the corner of Zayn’s eye he sees Harry’s jaw flex. He thinks that’s a smile but he’s not totally sure. “Next time.”

“Try your luck, pal.” Zayn turns his head so his cheekbone’s resting on Harry’s chest and kisses one of the swallows on Harry’s collarbone. Clavicle? He still doesn’t know. “That was nice.”

“Nice isn’t a very complimentary word,” Harry points out. His thumb hovers over Zayn’s cheekbone, too gentle.

“It is,” Zayn says. The carpet’s starting to get itchy on his bare skin so he sits up, examines his red knees and palms. No broken skin, thank God. Slowly they both start to get to their feet. Harry starts to fix the couch cushions still naked, because he’s a gentleman at all times, which is handy because it gives Zayn a chance to clean himself up with a packet of baby wipes someone left on the counter. “You’re going to the party, right? With—”

“With Taylor,” Harry says, looking unfocused about it, like it’s from a different world. “Yeah. And you and Perrie…”

“Yeah. We’ll be there.” Perrie’s looking forward to it, she told him earlier. They go over to Louis and Eleanor’s all the time and she’s looking forward to hanging out with them in a place that isn’t Louis’s games room. Sometimes Zayn thinks he should be worried about how easy he finds it to differentiate some sections of his life from other parts. “So are you feeling better now?”

“Am I… yeah. Yeah, I am.” Harry throws him a smile that’s one hundred percent flirtatious, and Zayn rolls his eyes and turns away even though he feels like that little fire in his chest’s been ignited all over again. “Thanks for cheering me up.”

“Any time.” Zayn does his jeans up. He really needs a shower. “Do you really think that the only way’s down?”

Harry’s hair’s mussed up from where he’s pulled his t-shirt over it. He screws up his lips as he thinks. “No. I think – I think the world’s there for us to take, and it’s just our decision whether we want to or not.”

Zayn wishes he could feel that way. “You’re such a pop star,” he says.

“So are you.” Harry looks slightly hurt.

“No, I just meant – not in a bad way.” Maybe in a bad way, but he wants to stop Harry from looking like that. “Come on. We should go.” He moves over to the door and unlocks it, half opening it. “Off you trot.”

Harry rolls his eyes but he comes over anyway. Zayn’s expecting him to traipse out into the corridor but instead he puts an arm around Zayn’s waist and pulls him into one of the most dramatic kisses he’s ever experienced. Just for a moment he’s lost in it, the sweeping gesture of it, and then it’s over as quickly as it started. The door is still open to the corridor and Zayn’s hit with the sudden and uncomfortable knowledge that if someone had seen them, their lives would be abruptly different already. He swallows. “Go on, superstar,” he says. “Go and take over the world.”

Harry smiles, a bright happy flash, and then he’s gone through the door. Zayn takes a moment longer to make sure his knees have stopped shaking, and goes over to the mirror to arrange his hair. His reflection isn’t quite right: his eyes are bottomless pits, and his cheekbones and jaw look too sharp in this light. He doesn’t feel like the world’s out there, no matter what Harry said – and even if it is, he doesn’t know if there’ll be any left over for him by the time Harry’s done. The only way is down, unless he figures out a way to make a path for himself as well. He rubs his fingertips over a bare patch of his wrist. Madison Square Garden, December 3rd, 2012. The day that things changed. He’s going to figure it out. He’s going to say Harry’s name next time. He’s going to be braver and stronger and less afraid. He’s going to be fine in the end. Zayn sets his jaw, and then he makes his way out into the world.

**Author's Note:**

> any comments are extremely appreciated. thank you for reading!


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